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The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
"The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" is a Sherlock Holmes short story by the British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was first published in the March 26, 1904 issue of Collier's magazine in the United States and in the April 1904 issue of The Strand magazine in the United Kingdom. It was republished in 1905 as part of the anthology The Return of Sherlock Holmes. The story's title character is a blackmailer who specializes in threatening to destroy the reputations of aristocratic women. Milverton obtains some letters written by Lady Eva Bracklewell. If the contents of the letters were made public, Lady Eva's marriage to the Earl of Dovercourt would have to be cancelled. Lady Eva hires the famous private detective Sherlock Holmes to help her. Holmes tries unsuccessfully to persuade Milverton not to blackmail Lady Eva or to at least accept less money from her. He then tries and fails to take the letters from Milverton by force. Believing that he has no other option, Holmes decides to break into Milverton's house and steal the letters. The character of Charles Augustus Milverton is based on the genuine historical figure Charles Augustus Howell, an art dealer and alleged blackmailer who died in mysterious circumstances in 1890. The story has been adapted for radio, film and television. Plot One evening, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson return to the apartment which they share to find a business card on a table. "Charles Augustus Milverton, Agent" is printed on one side of the card, "Will call at 6:30 - CAM" is written on the other. Holmes explains that Charles Augustus Milverton is the "worst man in London" and the "king of the blackmailers". He pays large sums of money for letters which will compromise wealthy or famous people. He usually buys such letters from the servants of those people, although he sometimes gets them from their friends. Although the police are vaguely aware of Milverton's criminal activities, nobody has ever reported him to them. So far, everybody that Milverton has attempted to blackmail has been genuinely guilty of some past indiscretion and nobody would like to admit that to the police. Acting on behalf of his client, Lady Eva Bracklewell, Holmes has invited Charles Augustus Milverton to come to his apartment that evening to try to negotiate with him. Lady Eva is due to marry the Earl of Dovercourt in two weeks' time. Milverton has obtained some letters which Lady Eva previously wrote to another young man. Although Holmes insists that the letters are only "imprudent", the marriage would be called off if the Earl of Dovercourt read them. Milverton has told Lady Eva that he will send the letters to her fiancé unless she pays him seven thousand pounds. Charles Augustus Milverton arrives. Holmes tells Milverton that he is going to advise his client to do something which would make it pointless for him to try to blackmail her. He is going to advise her to tell her fiancé everything about her previous relationship with the other young man and the letters which she wrote to him, in the hope that he would forgive her. Milverton knows that this is just a bluff because the Earl of Dovercourt would never forgive his fiancér for such a thing. Holmes protests that Lady Eva cannot afford to pay Milverton seven thousand pounds and asks him to accept a smaller sum. Milverton replies that he knows that Lady Eva does not have that much money but she could ask her friends to help pay him as a wedding present. Milverton is quite prepared to send the letters to the Earl of Dovercourt if Lady Eva does not pay him. He says that he would profit indirectly by doing so. He is currently trying to blackmail some ten other women in a similar position. If the wedding of Lady Eva Bracklewell and the Earl of Dovercourt were suddenly cancelled, those other women would realize that Milverton's threats were serious and would be more likely to pay him. Milverton produces a notebook and takes out an envelope with a coat of arms on it. He says that it is a compromising letter written by a woman who refused to pay him and that he is going to send it to her husband tomorrow. Believing that the letters from Lady Eva are in Milverton's notebook, Holmes suddenly gets out of his chair. He tells Watson to grab Milverton from behind. Milverton tells Holmes and Watson that he does not have the letters from Lady Eva with him and shows them that he is carrying a gun. After Milverton leaves, Holmes disguises himself as a workman before going out also. For the next few days, Watson rarely sees Holmes, except for when he enters and leaves their apartment in the same disguise. One evening, Holmes tells Watson that he has been pretending to be a plumber named Escott. He has learned a lot about Charles Augustus Milverton's home and his habits because Milverton's housemaid has fallen in love with him and agreed to marry him. Watson is not pleased with how Holmes is toying with a young woman's emotions. Holmes reassures him that he has a rival for the housemaid's affections who will quickly take his place once he disappears. Holmes knows that Milverton keeps the letters that he uses for blackmail purposes in a safe in his study. The study is next to Milverton's bedroom. Milverton always goes to bed at 10:30pm and always sleeps soundly. Holmes announces that he plans to break into Milverton's house at eleven o'clock that evening and steal back the letters which Lady Eva wrote. Watson says that he will only allow Holmes to do that if he can come too. Holmes grudgingly agrees. Wearing black silk masks over their eyes, Holmes and Watson break into Milverton's house and make their way to the study. Holmes uses a set of burglar's tools to open the safe. Watson notices that one of the doors to the room is not locked. Holmes hears footsteps. He closes the safe door and he and Watson hide behind a curtain. Charles Augustus Milverton enters the room. He had not been in bed but did not hear Holmes and Watson when they broke in because he was in another part of his large house. For some time, Milverton sits smoking and reading. From behind the curtain, Watson sees that Holmes did not close the safe door properly. Milverton, however, does not notice this. There is a knock at the unlocked door and a veiled woman enters. Milverton believes the woman is a servant of Countess d'Albert who has come to sell him some compromising letters. The woman lifts her veil. Milverton recognizes her as a woman that he attempted to blackmail before. When she refused to pay him, Milverton sent her letters to her husband. The woman says that her husband died of a broken heart after he read the letters. She tells Milverton, "You will ruin no more lives as you have ruined mine", produces a small revolver and shoots him. She leaves after checking that Milverton is dead. Before Milverton's servants come to the study in response to the gunshots, Holmes empties the safe and burns all the letters which it contained in the fireplace. He and Watson get out of the house and escape from its grounds by climbing over a six-foot wall. Milverton's servants continue to pursue them for another two miles. The following morning, Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard comes to Holmes and Watson's apartment. He asks Holmes to assist him in investigating the mysterious murder of Charles Augustus Milverton and in finding the two men who were seen fleeing from the scene of the crime. Holmes says that he will not help. He tells Lestrade that he knew Milverton to be a villain but also knew that he would never be prosecuted for his crimes. Holmes believes that "private revenge" is justified in this case. He adds that he has no sympathy for Milverton and thinks that his murderers are in the right. During lunch, Holmes suddenly makes Watson get up from the table and go out into the street. Holmes leads him to a "shop window filled with photographs of the celebrities and beauties of the day". One of the photographs is of a woman wearing a diamond tiara. A caption identifies her as the widow of a "great nobleman and statesman". She is the woman who shot Charles Augustus Milverton. Adaptations Charles Augustus Milverton, a short British silent movie starring Ellie Norwood as Holmes, was released in 1922. The tenth episode of the BBC TV series Sherlock Holmes, starring Douglas Wilmer as Holmes and Nigel Stock as Watson, is an adaptation of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton". It was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on April 24, 1965. Milverton's killer is identified as Lady Farningham in the episode. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The King of Blackmailers, a Russian-language TV movie starring Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson, is an adaptation of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton". It was first shown on television in the Soviet Union in 1980. "The Master Blackmailer", the feature-length seventh episode of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, the third of Granada TV's four Sherlock Holmes series, is an adaptation of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milvertton". The episode stars Jeremy Brett as Holmes, Edward Hardwicke as Watson and Robert Hardy as Charles Augustus Milverton. It first aired on the ITV network in the United Kingdom on January 2, 1992. Among the many differences from the original short story, Holmes begins pursuing Charles Augustus Milverton some considerable time before Milverton begins trying to blackmail Lady Eva. Another client approaches Holmes after she finds out that her two grandsons' lives have been ruined by a blackmailer. Holmes contacts Lady Eva (whose name is changed from Brackwell to Blackwell) after he finds out that Milverton intends to make her his next victim. Holmes and Watson believe that Milverton is away at a ball hosted by Lady Eva at the time when they break into his house. Milverton's killer is identified as Lady Swinstead, who became Lady Eva's guardian after her parents died. Like the real life Charles Augustus Howell, Charles Augustus Milverton is specifically identified as being an art dealer in the episode. "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" has been loosely adapted as the episode "Dead Man's Switch" from the American TV series Elementary (first shown on CBS on April 23, 2013), the episode "His Last Vow" from the British TV series Sherlock (first shown on BBC One on January 12, 2014) and the episode "The Adventure of the Portrait of a Teacher" from the Japanese TV series Sherlock Holmes Puppet Entertainment (first shown on NHK on December 14, 2014). A radio adaptation of the story, starring Clive Merrison as Holmes, Michael Williams as Watson and Peter Vaughan as Charles Augustus Milverton, was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom on April 7, 1993. A sub-plot deals with Aggie, Charles Augustus Milverton's housemaid, and her relationship with Harry, the man that she loves before she falls for Holmes in the guise of Escott the plumber. External links *Text of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" on Wikisource. *Public domain audiobook of "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" on YouTube. *"The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" on Baker Street wiki. Category:Mystery Category:Detective Category:Short Stories Category:Famous Category:Classic